


My Love Paramour

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Disturbing Themes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:35:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22250404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: Physician!  Heal thyself!
Relationships: Commander James Fitzjames/Dr Stephen S. Stanley, Dr Alexander McDonald/Dr Stephan S. Stanley, Harry D. S. Goodsir/Dr Stephen S. Stanley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	1. I need a drink/ and not vinegar neither

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place, broadly, across the period encompassing "Punished As A Boy" and "First Shot A Winner, Lads", up to the time between "First Shot" and "A Mercy".  
> I have seen Dr. MacDonald's name listed as "MacDonald" and "McDonald". I used the former spelling. Whether or not it is correct, I do not know.  
> The title of this story comes from the Cocteau Twins song of the same name. The chapter titles come, variously, from a poem called "jeanne d'arc" by Patti Smith; a painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard; the song of the same name by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.  
> Thanks to subsequentibis for their help in developing these scenarios.  
> I am not involved in the production of The Terror. No one pays me to do this. This story and the work it's based upon are fiction. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

… Yet, in the corridor, he finds Commander Fitzjames. He is not waiting for Stephen. He couldn’t be.  
But Fitzjames has the look of one waiting. Of one, Stephen allows, because it is a traitorous thing to think, and it makes him feel ashamed, and he finds that he enjoys the shame- loitering. “There is, actually, something, Doctor, that I would have you do for me, if you’re willing.” As though suddenly shy of Stephen, Fitzjames looks down.  
For the expression on Fitzjames’ face, Stephen would say much more, to assure Fitzjames of his willingness in all matters, but he makes himself reply, simply: “Yes, sir?”  
“If I wouldn’t be imposing, might I come to your room?”  
“Of course, sir. Are you unwell?”  
Fitzjames smiles, his manner now easy, perhaps somewhat relieved, as though he had doubted, and were happy to receive confirmation. It isn’t necessary. Stephen would refuse nothing, and needs no persuading. Even without his saying, Fitzjames must know this. For, who would refuse Fitzjames? “You saw to me once, and the results were good. I was wondering if you might not mind checking over your work.”  
“Of course, sir.”  
In Stephen’s room, Fitzjames removes his coat. “It’s the matter of my wounds,” he says, the smoothness of his manner somewhat taken off, his concern revealing itself to be genuine, becoming clearer each second. “I’m afraid I’ve noticed some irritation.”  
“Please, show me, sir, if you would.”  
Fitzjames removes the necessarily clothing, Stephen accepting each article as Fitzjames sheds it, beginning to feel like nothing so much as a clotheshorse. Stephen frowns. Even six years earlier, as a younger man, Fitzjames had not been so slim. Nor is this the slimness of youth, Fitzjames having seen thirty come and go. “Sir, if you’ll pardon me, how has your appetite been?”  
Fitzjames smiles, somewhat sheepishly. “I suppose I’ve been preoccupied.”  
“May I?” He looks helplessly at his armfuls of Fitzjames’ clothing.  
“Oh. I’m sorry, Doctor. Just set those on the bed.”  
Stephen does, then picks up the lamp. He brings it close to Fitzjames, regards the injuries. The last time he saw them, they were newly-sealed, raised on the skin like a brand, seeping and tender. These are flat, dry, but have at their borders the pinkness of a scratch or abrasion. Stephen frowns. “As you say, there is some irritation, sir. Do you feel pain, or discomfort?”  
Fitzjames shakes his head.  
“May I?” he asks again.  
“Do what you need to do, Doctor.”  
He touches the wounds. The scarred skin is dry, supple, pale. Infection seems unlikely, but he sniffs the wounds, to put his mind at ease, so that he may put Fitzjames’ mind at ease. It is only clean skin. “It may be,” he says finally, “that, owing to the great abundance of clothing one must wear in the cold, the wounds have become irritated, from the rubbing or pressure of the material, but I see no cause for concern. If you wish, I can give you a salve to apply to them, but unless it worsens, I don’t know if it would be worth the trouble.”  
“Thank you, Doctor,” Fitzjames says, looking up at Stephen, his expression soft.   
“Was there anything else, sir?”  
Fitzjames smiles. “Are you so eager to be rid of me, Doctor? Though, the hour is late,” he adds softly.  
“Not at all. Not in the least.” He holds Fitzjames’ gaze, waiting for… Waiting. When he feels it may be safe to do so, he lays his hand against Fitzjames’ cheek. He isn’t shaken off, so he risks more, still.  
Fitzjames’ mouth is soft against his.   
Under his hands, Fitzjames’ body is more diminished than it had appeared by sight; the collarbone prominent, the ribs individually distinguishable. Stephen will suggest that Fitzjames take a little brandy or sherry at the evening meal, to open his appetite and put him at ease. A wound is not a finished thing. It is never final. Deprive the body of nourishment, and old wounds will open, as though from new insult. Even if scurvy isn’t present, this may happen, still. Fitzjames has always burned the candle at both ends. For the gorgeous light and stirring warmth it produces, one is aware that the fuel will soon be eaten up.  
Once it is- darkness.  
He kisses Fitzjames, his mouth, his throat, sets himself down at the edge of the bed, and kisses Fitzjames’ body, his hands on Fitzjames’ hips, Fitzjames’ hands in his hair. He looks up at Fitzjames; Fitzjames, down at him.  
“You’ve always taken care of me, Dr. Stanley,” Fitzjames says, his hand on Stephen’s face.   
There is gratitude in Fitzjames’ voice, almost bending into sadness, and it makes Stephen ache, both for his wish not to see Fitzjames unhappy, and for the closeness it makes him feel to Fitzjames. It is a poignant pang of longing, and Stephen feels himself color. He says: “It’s been my duty, sir, and my honor.”  
“Perhaps your pleasure, as well. It has certainly been my pleasure to be cared for by you.”  
“It’s gratifying to hear that, sir.”  
Looking down at him, Fitzjames smiles, fondly. Stephen feels his breath hitch. Without being asked, he goes to his knees, unbuttons Fitzjames’ trousers. He isn’t told to go no further, so he goes further. From deep in his throat, Fitzjames sighs. Gently, he eases away, then back toward Stephen. It proceeds in this manner, Stephen doing very little, more acted upon than acting. For that, it feels as though Fitzjames is all around him; all there is. His scent. His taste. The sensations he provokes in Stephen, physical and otherwise.  
“You should move away,” Fitzjames says, his voice rough.  
Stephen stays where he is.  
Fitzjames moans. He trembles, his hands in Stephen’s hair. After a moment, he withdraws. Thankfully, he turns away, giving Stephen privacy to swallow what is in his mouth. His knees complain from use, but even this is welcome. Perhaps he’ll stay like this a while longer.  
“You’ve always been very good to me, Doctor,” says Fitzjames, collecting his clothes.  
“Think nothing of it,” Stephen says, watching Fitzjames dress, waiting to be asked for his assistance with Fitzjames’ braces or in buttoning his coat. The request does not come, and it is only when Fitzjames gives him a final look, over his shoulder, as he’s leaving the room, that Stephen realizes that he’s still kneeling.  
Even a thing wished for, received in much the form in which it was imagined, may disappoint.  
Placing his hand on the bed to balance himself, Stephen stands.


	2. “Le Verrou”

It should not disappoint.  
He should not be disappointed.  
Nor should he let disappointment make him feel this way, like something that is both made up of jagged pieces and too soft, and easily-hurt. Without wishing to, Stephen thinks of some creature that Goodsir tried to tell him about, early in the expedition, before Goodsir finally comprehended that Stephen was neither impressed by Goodsir’s scholarship nor so in need of the society of others that he wished to converse on subjects about which he neither knew nor cared. Yet, the image of the creature remains, sketched in a book that Goodsir showed him; an exterior studded with needles over an interior of jelly.  
He thinks, also, equally against his will, of Private Heather, the top of his cranium sheered off, his brain exposed. How all had marveled at him, at his resilience, as though the man had hope of ever returning to himself; as though all that marveling were not just, though perhaps inadvertently, a jest at his expense.  
How often a jest may take on the semblance of hope.  
Stephen has not visited the man since the night of his attack, but he finds himself there, now, before Private Heather in his hammock in Terror’s sickbay. His wound is covered not by a bandage, but by a curtain, that may be moved, to display or to conceal, as on a painting in a gallery.  
“He seems to be improving,” MacDonald says.  
Stephen only just stops himself from exclaiming. Surprise becomes annoyance, and he turns around, feeling himself frown. “And how is one to measure his improvement?”  
“His wound shows no sign of infection, nor has the bleeding begun anew. His pulse is steady; his breathing, regular. He takes nourishment, keeps it down.”  
“This man will not improve. Not for anything you, or I, or anyone else might do,” Stephen finds himself saying, with a bitterness that is remarkable even to him.  
“You take a dim view of the very art you practice,” MacDonald says mildly, smiling in a way that one might identify as ‘pleasantly’. “It may be that with sufficient rest, he will be restored. I’ve certainly heard of enough cases of those given up for dead recovering, suddenly and seemingly without rhyme or reason.”  
Stephen shakes his head. “Not like this. There are some things that a body may perhaps bear, but that a soul cannot.”  
“That’s an uncharacteristically spiritual sentiment.”  
“Call it what you like, but you’ve turned the man into an anatomical exhibition. There is no art in that. Excepting, perhaps, showmanship.”  
The smile has an even greater semblance of pleasantness. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to provoke me.”  
“Perhaps I am,” Stephen says.  
“And with a view to what possible result?”  
“That, I do not, myself, know,” Stephen replies wearily.   
“Of course you do,” MacDonald says.  
He could not know.  
But, then, such a thing is only a secret if it is particular to one man. Here, all men are the same in this. Those who do not do it still think of it. Removing the accepted outlets does not remove need. Even a man deprived of the ability to savor nourishment must still take it. The men on Erebus do not speak to Stephen of such things. Stephen can tell simply by looking at MacDonald that the men on Terror speak to him. The man is such a doctor, Stephen thinks spitefully, that even another doctor will come to him for care.  
“There are no doors, here,” Stephen says, “only curtains.”  
“There are doors in other parts of the ship. Some of them may even be bolted.”  
“You’ll be missed.”  
MacDonald’s smile is not pleasant. “We won’t be that long.”  
Stephen frowns.  
“I’ll find Mr. Goodsir,” MacDonald continues. “It won’t take a moment. He’ll be down below.”  
“Attempting to extract something meaningful from that girl, no doubt.”  
“Something like that,” MacDonald says, and leaves.  
Stephen thinks to go back to his place by Private Heather, but stays where he is. There is nothing left to see there, and looking for it will help neither of them.  
A short time later, MacDonald returns with Goodsir, who’s enumerating with great enthusiasm the names of various Arctic species’ in the girl’s language.  
“Thank you, Mr. Goodsir,” MacDonald says, truncating the catalog. “Dr. Stanley and I won’t be long.”  
“Yes, sir,” Goodsir says quietly, going to Private Heather’s side.  
“What did you tell him?” Stephen asks MacDonald when he’s sure they will not be overheard.  
“Only that you and I had to discuss a personal matter.”  
“You might have been more discreet.”  
“I doubt he has the capacity or the desire to seek a secondary meaning.”  
“He’s not the cipher you might imagine him to be.”  
“Were he, what would you attempt to inscribe upon him?”  
Stephen says nothing. They are at the door to MacDonald’s room.  
“After you,” says MacDonald. He closes the door behind them. He bolts it.  
Stephen half thinks that MacDonald will lose his nerve the second that they are alone. He only half thinks it, because the thought hasn’t time to fully form. The door bolted, MacDonald is on him, all but knocking him against the door, forcing his breath from him, kissing him with what might charitably be called ‘a passion’, but is perhaps closer to ‘a vengeance’; a toothy collision that forces Stephen’s mouth open. MacDonald’s hands are at the front of his trousers. Stephen looks at him in askance.  
“I meant what I said about it not taking long,” MacDonald says.  
Stephen can think of no reply, so he lets himself be operated upon. His trousers and drawers open, MacDonald turns him around, and then shoves a handkerchief into his hand. From there, it’s all he can do to maintain awareness of what’s happening, MacDonald handling him less with any kind of ardor than with mechanical efficiency. It should feel sterile, somehow. Perhaps it does, but the mixture of coldness and heat is strangely affecting, and Stephen finds himself leaning his brow against the door, his body arching, his hips pushing forward. There is a sense of his clothing being disarrayed, and he thinks for a second that he’s done it, himself, with a careless movement, but he then feels MacDonald pulling at his shirt from behind with his other hand, then slipping it down, below the line of Stephen’s trousers.   
A jolt.  
A very sudden one.  
MacDonald’s finger.  
Dry, but compensating for it with insistence.  
Stephen bends slightly at the waist to accommodate it.  
It is less pleasurable than it is irritating, but that irritation mixing with pleasure sharpens his enjoyment, makes it strange, and jagged. Something that is both spiky and terribly soft.  
Just in time, he remembers the handkerchief in his hand.  
Breathing heavily, he stays as he is, perhaps longer than is appropriate. It pleases him to think he may be inconveniencing MacDonald. Finally, he redresses himself. He turns around, and sees MacDonald at the wash basin, drying his hands.  
“You can take that with you,” MacDonald says, pointing at the handkerchief. “I’m not a keeper of souvenirs.”  
Stephen clears his throat. “And what may I do for you?”  
“As much as I appreciate the offer, I meant what I said to Goodsir. Your company is bearable, Stephen. But only in small doses.”  
“Yours is not exactly a tonic, either, Alexander.”  
MacDonald smiles his pleasant smile. “Then, perhaps the next time you feel a sense of dis-ease, you might consider healing yourself.”  
Stephen frowns.  
MacDonald opens the door. “After you,” he says.  
Stephen walks out of MacDonald’s room. His back turned, he hears the door close behind him.


	3. Stranger Than Kindness

The cards do not stay shuffled for long. The Eskimo girl having departed, Goodsir has returned to Erebus, bringing with him the idle chatter he must have inflicted on her, on MacDonald; likely, on the entire ship. How can he find so much to talk about? But for his duty, Stephen spends his days in silence. What is there to say, and to whom should one say it?  
Though he must know it to be pointless, Goodsir will not cease in relating to Stephen what he learned from the girl, which includes a great many meteorological terms that hold no interest whatsoever, and more annoyingly, what Goodsir has learned from his conversations with MacDonald. It overflows onto the patients, to anyone who comes to the sickbay. It is a great tide of information that settles around them. Would that it were a tide, and that they could sail to home on it. Would that anything that Goodsir knows or says were in any way useful in their current situation.  
Unimpeded even by time, Goodsir will turn up at Stephen’s door at night, to ask questions he already knows the answers to, about a patient, about where a certain bottle or instrument is kept, about a case that is not even before them, but has come from a volume that Goodsir seems to think that Stephen has read and found interesting. Perhaps it is a mania of some sort. Tonight, the topic is… Stephen can no longer recall, though it seems to have had something to do with cider. If Goodsir had taken to drink, it might explain a great deal. Stephen’s greeting of, “The hour is late, Mr. Goodsir,” may as well have been a page of Greek set before an inebriate.  
The hour is late.  
Stephen may not have known his full portion of sleep in more nights than he can count, but his nights are still his. Perversely, it is often lonely men who most jealously guard their solitude. Stephen closes his book energetically, making a sound like clapping hands. Interrupted, Goodsir stops speaking, regards Stephen with the expression of a chastised dog, which does not engender sympathy, but rather, the opposite, and Stephen greets it readily. He will not present the semblance of kindness when its substance is missing. He will not smile pleasantly.  
He says: “Mr. Goodsir, if you are going to take up much more of my time tonight, might I suggest that you do so in my bed?”  
He means it as a rebuke, or to shock, or in spite, in mockery of himself.  
He doesn’t know how he means it. However he means it, the logical response is disgust, outrage. There is silence. He, waiting for the insult to run its course. Goodsir, no doubt stunned, unaccustomed as he must be to being confronted by such matters, having come from halls of lecture and museums, not battlefields and ships. It will go no further, Goodsir too ashamed to speak of it to anybody. After this, he’ll stay out of Stephen’s way; leave Stephen in peace.  
That is what will happen. And Stephen will again be alone.  
Yet, Goodsir holds his gaze for a long time, his expression grave, searching, before saying quietly, “All right.”  
It is unexpected.  
“Should I undress?” Goodsir asks.  
“It might make the process more expedient.”  
Stephen sets aside his book. After a moment, he removes his drawers, under the bedclothes, in consideration of the cold, and, because, he finds, after all of that, he doesn’t wish to make Goodsir feel abused or ill at ease. Between his clothing and his bare skin, Goodsir may find that the prospect is not so attractive as he thought it moments earlier. If he wanted to call it off, Stephen wouldn’t wish to detain him with concerns about Stephen’s expectations. He would be detained, Stephen thinks, irritably, he would feel obligated; Goodsir, who is always allowing himself to be imposed upon. One always somehow finds oneself looking after such a person, sometimes having to save him from the trouble he finds himself in resulting from others’ use of his nature. How tiresome it is, having to care for somebody. The work is exhausting, and it never ends.  
Finally, Goodsir is before him, clad only in his shirt, legs pale and slim and goose-fleshed beneath. Goodsir looks down, though whether it is from hesitancy or abashment, Stephen doesn’t know.  
Stephen sighs. “Mr. Goodsir, the floor is very cold and you are unshod. Do yourself the service of getting into bed, before you catch a chill, and I am obliged to treat you as my patient.” He throws back the bedclothes, and moves to make as much of a place for Goodsir as he can in the narrow bed. “If you feel any trepidation, allow me to assure you that I am not in the habit of taking liberties, and that, should you wish it, you may simply stay here, where it is warm, until you wish to leave.”  
Apparently satisfied with this, Goodsir gets into bed next to him, and Stephen pulls the bedclothes over them. The exposed parts of Goodsir’s body are ice cold, forcing chills into Stephen where Goodsir contacts him, but Stephen makes himself not comment on it. The cold is not something any man can help.  
“I don’t think you would,” Goodsir says softly, “take liberties.”  
“I am gladdened by your good opinion of my character.”  
Slowly, Goodsir settles himself against Stephen, his body gradually warming. It is not unwelcome.  
“I’m going to kiss you,” Goodsir says.  
“At long last,” Stephen replies tartly, but takes Goodsir up in his arms, and brushes Goodsir’s hair away from his brow before Goodsir places his mouth against Stephen’s. It’s a very chaste affair, perhaps owing to Goodsir’s relative youth, the experiences he might have foregone for the sake of his studies, or due to the natural shyness that often accompanies bookish pursuits, but then Goodsir opens his mouth, and Stephen must revise his opinion. The kiss is as thorough as it is soft, a warm and seeking press, Goodsir’s hands on Stephen’s face. He ventures his hands on Goodsir’s back, moves them up, across Goodsir’s shoulders, then down again, above his waist. All the while, Goodsir explores him with an unanticipated enthusiasm, Stephen forced to concede that it is not just welcome but desired, as is the weight of Goodsir in his lap; the press of Goodsir’s knee, in particular, advantageous. He moves a little bit, to signal the sincerity of his interest, and is answered by Goodsir’s hand on his wrist, guiding it down over Goodsir’s clothed front, and then, his eyes on Stephen’s all the while, up under his shirt. There, Stephen contacts a figure broader than the shoulders would suggest, soft hair on the chest and belly. Stephen kisses the throat, his hand resting on the left breast, Goodsir’s heartbeat against the palm of Stephen’s hand; then moving gently, drawing a long sigh from Goodsir, Goodsir’s hips riding forward. He moves his hand down again, along the line of Goodsir’s waist, to his hip, then inward. He receives. Goodsir kisses him again; deeper, still, with greater urgency. In Stephen’s hand, he’s near completion; hard and wet in equal measure. So that Stephen finds himself doing very little; simply giving Goodsir a place to fall. He has his other hand on Goodsir’s hip, pulling him gently forward; then simply, resting, feeling the way he moves. Then, it is a matter of seeing him through the moment of extinction, Goodsir working himself in Stephen’s hand, the motion of his body stuttering, Goodsir letting out a series of short gasps, as though surprised by the way that things had turned out.  
“Your shirt,” Stephen says, frowning.  
“I can wash it later on,” Goodsir says, smiling contentedly. Before Stephen can say anything else, Goodsir kisses him. It is no less sweet, for Goodsir having had his release. He keeps kissing Stephen, his mouth, then his neck, Stephen slowly allowing himself to embrace Goodsir. He slips his hands under Goodsir’s shirt, up his back, then down, again, to his hips. “Shall I take off my shirt?” he asks.  
“If it pleases you,” Stephen says.  
“Would it please you?”  
“Do as you wish.”  
“I want to know if it would please you,” Goodsir says, slightly flushed, this show of boldness costing him.  
Stephen nods. “Yes. It would. I’ll take if off for you, of you wish.”  
“Yes,” Goodsir says, and shifts to allow Stephen greater access to him.  
Bared, Stephen kisses his shoulders, his breast, hands on Goodsir’s waist, Goodsir’s hands beneath the bedclothes, beneath Stephen’s shirt. He moves, makes it easier for Goodsir, feels Goodsir assay, and hit his mark. His hand is warm, his grasp is sure. He moves with Goodsir, his hands on Goodsir’s hips. Both of them are breathing heavily from the effort. He watches Goodsir’s chest rise and fall, and the motion of Goodsir’s hips, moving perhaps in sympathy with Stephen, and that of his hand, hidden though it is beneath the bedclothes and Stephen’s shirt. Stephen pulls back the bedclothes, pulls up his shirt. He sees himself. He sees Goodsir.  
One may have all manner of intercourse, yet feel as though one has not been touched, at all.  
Stephen knows that he’s been touched.  
Afterwards, he still feels it, in his pulse, sounding throughout his body. His shirt and his bedclothes are stained. There will be time to worry about that later. Goodsir puts on his shirt, and lies down, more on Stephen than next to him.  
“I always thought you didn’t care for me,” Goodsir says, his tone infuriatingly light. Perhaps he is mocking Stephen.  
Perhaps Stephen is worthy of mockery.  
Let him be truly worthy. He puts his arm around Goodsir. “I don’t.”  
“What we’ve just done would suggest otherwise.”  
“Don’t make too much of it.” He brushes back Goodsir’s hair from his brow, caresses Goodsir’s cheek.  
“I find you very unpleasant, Dr. Stanley.”  
“We’re lying unclothed in my bed, Mr. Goodsir; you might consider calling me by my Christian name.”  
“I find you very unpleasant, Stephen.”  
“I find you insufferable, Henry.”  
“Please call me ‘Harry’.”  
“I find you insufferable, Harry.”  
Drawing himself up to Stephen and Stephen down to him, Harry kisses Stephen.  
Utterly intolerable.


End file.
